Though training is coming along, I am a little frustrated because I don’t think that my strength levels are close enough to where they were prior to my gout flare. Yes, I get that being off from weight training for nearly six full months is going to be bit detrimental to my fitness goals, and my training plan is going well and I shouldn’t be concerned. But I do want to make a respectable showing for my first (and only?!?) competition. Are the levels where I am at now going to be enough for me to make an event that I can be proud of? We will know in June for sure!!
Prince’s sudden and unexpected passing has taken over the interwebs. Twitter, Facebook has become memorials for him. I remember when he first took to “American Bandstand” and my Aunt mentioned something along the lines of his being “confused” with respect to his androgyny, which by today’s standards would barely be noticeable in most metro areas. And if it was notable, it would only be in passing, whereas at the time of Prince’s national ascent, a person would have been placing themselves in harm’s way at such an expression of their identity.
I won’t be sharing any particular memories that are associated with my memories of Prince. There will likely be a number of people going on about their imagined relationship with their fandom and heartbreaking loss. My sense of what Prince meant to me just doesn’t motivate me to wax melodramatic about him. Real life, it seems, can often be melodramatic enough for me!
“A insincere and evil friend is to be feared more than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body but an evil friend will wound your mind.” -Buddha
The frequency of my grumbling about my need for solitude and my desire to be alone has finally been settled. As much as I once looked forward to the possibilities between Nebraska and myself, in my mind, I feel that I communicated how likely things would be between us should things go astray between us. And it isn’t that because we did not get on well that we don’t get on now… though it sort of does. What I mean is that I never denied that I was an “either/or” type of person, that for those who want to be intimate and close to me that there is an unspoken commitment that is expected, no, REQUIRED of said individual. Acolyte or infidel… I MEANT that. This isn’t a demand… I don’t think that it has to be spoken, given the kind of commitment that I am willing to give one in return. I would think that it would be understood, particularly after one sees my level of enthusiasm to a relationship.
When I look back and consider how my dwindling relevance in Mookie Dee’s life played in my decision to leave her, the way that my relationship with Nebraska has developed is not at all surprising to me. I don’t fault her for anything, just as I never faulted Mookie Dee for making the decision that she made regarding us. It is more that our directions and best interests did not align and this would keep us from finding a harmony were our relationship could co-exist with our individual paths and how we choose to pursue said paths. This schism between us, is representative of the pondered complexities of life, especially when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat…
One of the things that I feel has allowed me to comment expressively on relationships is my iconoclasm. For years I have been reminded that my perspective on living runs counter-current to the flow those others locked in the matrix of mass appeal and thought. I can still see my older cousin as he explains to an adolescent Mark that, “... the world moves at a certain speed and you have got to either get with it or fall out”,(or something to that effect..!) while I was bullheaded enough to believe that between focus on a direction and random causality would guide my way. And in many ways, I believe that it has done just that. At any rate, it is because of where I sit in life, hidden partially in shadow, that I can make as-close-as-it-comes to an objective observation of how people get on, intimately, through the sexual binary of standard relations. See, while much of my personal journal has been about my “so-called love life”, the fact is, being IN something matters little to me. The urge to be “in” something is, for me, a mix of curiosity and instinct.a posteriori experiences, that has beckoned to me since I became a fully conscious entity and being. It is this area of my human experience that I feel the sensations of unreasonable ambivalence. I don’t think I have ever said that I “wish I was dead” or some other selfish statement of nullification because of my interactions with people. But it is with the child-like inspection of a scab on the knee or that of a lifeless pigeon lying on the lawn of a neighbor, that I see relations and my role in the lives of those whose paths I’ve crossed.
Prince’s sudden and unexpected passing has taken over the interwebs. Twitter, Facebook has become memorials for him. I remember when he first took to “American Bandstand” and my Aunt mentioned something along the lines of his being “confused” with respect to his androgyny, which by today’s standards would barely be noticeable in most metro areas. And if it was notable, it would only be in passing, whereas at the time of Prince’s national ascent, a person would have been placing themselves in harm’s way at such an expression of their identity.
I won’t be sharing any particular memories that are associated with my memories of Prince. There will likely be a number of people going on about their imagined relationship with their fandom and heartbreaking loss. My sense of what Prince meant to me just doesn’t motivate me to wax melodramatic about him. Real life, it seems, can often be melodramatic enough for me!
“A insincere and evil friend is to be feared more than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body but an evil friend will wound your mind.” -Buddha
The frequency of my grumbling about my need for solitude and my desire to be alone has finally been settled. As much as I once looked forward to the possibilities between Nebraska and myself, in my mind, I feel that I communicated how likely things would be between us should things go astray between us. And it isn’t that because we did not get on well that we don’t get on now… though it sort of does. What I mean is that I never denied that I was an “either/or” type of person, that for those who want to be intimate and close to me that there is an unspoken commitment that is expected, no, REQUIRED of said individual. Acolyte or infidel… I MEANT that. This isn’t a demand… I don’t think that it has to be spoken, given the kind of commitment that I am willing to give one in return. I would think that it would be understood, particularly after one sees my level of enthusiasm to a relationship.
When I look back and consider how my dwindling relevance in Mookie Dee’s life played in my decision to leave her, the way that my relationship with Nebraska has developed is not at all surprising to me. I don’t fault her for anything, just as I never faulted Mookie Dee for making the decision that she made regarding us. It is more that our directions and best interests did not align and this would keep us from finding a harmony were our relationship could co-exist with our individual paths and how we choose to pursue said paths. This schism between us, is representative of the pondered complexities of life, especially when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat…
One of the things that I feel has allowed me to comment expressively on relationships is my iconoclasm. For years I have been reminded that my perspective on living runs counter-current to the flow those others locked in the matrix of mass appeal and thought. I can still see my older cousin as he explains to an adolescent Mark that, “... the world moves at a certain speed and you have got to either get with it or fall out”,(or something to that effect..!) while I was bullheaded enough to believe that between focus on a direction and random causality would guide my way. And in many ways, I believe that it has done just that. At any rate, it is because of where I sit in life, hidden partially in shadow, that I can make as-close-as-it-comes to an objective observation of how people get on, intimately, through the sexual binary of standard relations. See, while much of my personal journal has been about my “so-called love life”, the fact is, being IN something matters little to me. The urge to be “in” something is, for me, a mix of curiosity and instinct.a posteriori experiences, that has beckoned to me since I became a fully conscious entity and being. It is this area of my human experience that I feel the sensations of unreasonable ambivalence. I don’t think I have ever said that I “wish I was dead” or some other selfish statement of nullification because of my interactions with people. But it is with the child-like inspection of a scab on the knee or that of a lifeless pigeon lying on the lawn of a neighbor, that I see relations and my role in the lives of those whose paths I’ve crossed.
1 comment:
I'm trying to get back into shape, too. I'm not a bodybuilder like you are, but it's been a stressful time for me lately, and in times of stress I head straight for the Macaroni and Cheese. I remember Oprah Winfrey said once, "I am a substance abuser, and the substance I abuse is food" - and I totally get that. Anyways, I'm back on regular exercise schedule and am trending the right direction. Best of luck to us both!
I wasn't a huge Prince fan, but the start of 1999, "I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray..."is one of my favorite opening lines of all time.
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